Antelope chipmunks are extraordinarily active and continually wander far from home in search of food or in a spirit of restless inquiry. As the traveler on horseback rides slowly along he will see them racing away in front of him, sometimes climbing to the top of a bush 100 or 200 yards in advance for a better look at the wayfarer and then scuttling down and racing on again. In this way I have seen them keep ahead of me sometimes for several hundred yards instead of hiding in some hole or shelter, as they might easily do. At other times they were so unsuspicious they would permit me to pass within a few yards with slight signs of alarm. They have a chirping call, often uttered when watching from the top of a bush, and also a prolonged twittering or trilling note, diminishing toward the end. In the higher and colder parts of their range, where snow lies long on the ground, these spermophiles hibernate for several months, but in the warmer areas they are active throughout the year. Wherever they occur they gather food and carry it to their underground store-rooms in their cheek pouches. Like most ground squirrels, they eat many kinds of seeds and fruits as well as flesh and insects when occasion offers. About cultivated lands they are sometimes abundant and destructive, digging up corn or other grain as soon as it is planted and also taking toll of the ripening grain until they become a pest. In the desert they often gather about camps to pick up the grain scattered about when the horses are fed. It is well for them that they are prolific, having one or more litters during spring and summer, with from four to twelve in each, as they have many enemies. Snakes and weasels pursue them into their burrows, while foxes, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, and many kinds of hawks, constantly reduce their numbers. =THE GOLDEN CHIPMUNK= (=Callospermophilus lateralis chrysodeirus= and its relatives) (_For illustration, see page 542_) [Illustration: RED SQUIRREL _Sciurus hudsonicus_] [Illustration: DOUGLAS SQUIRREL _Sciurus douglasi_]